Lloyds Building

This major office building is the home of the insurance institution Lloyd’s of London. Like the Pompidou Centre – designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers – the building was innovative in having its services such as staircases, lifts, electrical power conduits and water pipes on the outside, leaving an uncluttered space inside. Unlike the Pompidou however the expressed services here aren’t painted in primary colours but left in their natural state: the shiny metal of the pipes and especially the escape stairs give the building energy. The escape stairs ripple down the building like vertebrae.

Also, like the Pompidou Centre, this building was highly influenced by the work of Archigram in the 1950s and 1960s, eg Plug-in City.

The Lloyds Building has 3 main towers + 3 service towers around central, rectangular space.
The focal point is the large Underwriting Room on the ground floor, which houses the famous Lutine Bell. The Underwriting Room has 60 m high atrium lit naturally through a huge barrel-vaulted glass roof.

The first four floors around atrium are connected by escalators through the middle of the structure. Higher floors are glassed-in, and can only be reached via the outside lifts. The 12 glass lifts were the first of their kind in the UK.